When I was like five I went to the er in the middle of the night for severe stomach pain.
At first, the doctors couldn't understand why. My iron levels were reading low, scary, and I was writhing in pain.
Then, they x-rayed me. Realized I was severely constipated. Desperately wanting to know the reason why, they fed me miralax and had me wait, then put the hat on the toilet and said go girl go
Little did they or anyone know, I was anemic—Like, round the clock, full time anemia—and as anemia goes, I had developed pica with a fixation on one flavor in particular.
See, before I went to school, paper? Not as bountiful. A rare treat here and there when I thought I could sneak it with no one noticing, but nothing excess.
Then I went to school and THE. FEAST. WAS. ON.
Construction paper, notebook paper, printer paper, cardboard, and sticky notes. Oh god, I had opinions and preferences, flavors I sought out like a paper sommelier, king of all being cheap ass colored paper with that rough grain.
Every single day in class: cut, glue, feast. We did so many fucking crafts, throwing out a paper monstrosity for every aunt, grandpa, and uncle on holidays you've never even fucking heard of. And every fucking time, just fucking handfuls, scraps, sheets—i got a fucking A in cleanliness because girl I was sucking up fringies like a damn handvac.
The day they had me shit in that hat was the day I saw my life flash before my eyes.
Before I even turned around and saw that confetti and I knew, I JUST KNEW, my parents were going to kill me.
The nurse waited outside to collect the hat and put the sample behind the door. I heard her as I stood outside of the bathroom "Oh!"
She returned, I refused to look her in the eyes. I went back to the exam room. My father had run out for coffee. I sat there in stone cold silence, staring at the nurse as she stared back at me
She knew. I knew. The lab knew.
Soon, my father would know.
The test came back before my father. It's on my medical file to this day. Multicolored foreign fibers.
My father came back. The nurse was solemn, she wrote on a sticky note. "It appears your daughter is anemic." It's 2001, I am five at best; she sticks the note to the page and hands the folded up results to my father in front of my greedy, paper loving eyes.
He opens it. Reads it. Looks up. Frowns. We leave.
Time passes, we do not talk about the incident. Truthfully, I did not know whether they told him the truth of what had happened.
Every now and then though, I would swear I caught my father quickly sliding the notebook away from me after I did my homework. He'd put it in my backpack, hanging it out of reach.
I watched him. I craved paper.
I take iron pills. The memory of the paper still haunts me. The flavor swirls in my dreams. Years pass. I hate the iron, I want the paper. I will always want the paper.
Time goes on. I am twenty, in college, and I catch the flu.
I am sicker than a dog, I do not go home, I cannot.
I wonder what to do, I call my grandmother. She does not pick up.
I call my father to ask him to ask my grandmother for me. My voice is weak.
My father tells me to go to the er. I am sick. He says he has only heard me like this once before.
I ask in a small, light voice, "when?" Years of my life flashing before my eyes, the memory almost out of my grasp.
Solemn, he breaks his decades of silence.
"When you ate all that goddamn paper," he grunts.
I laugh so hard I throw up. Bedding: ruined. I put it in the dorm washer and go to the er, get an IV, and survive.
At the end they hand me my lab results with a yellow sticky note.
I survive. I have more close calls. I still crave paper.
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